Let’s sit down and see what’s on Gary Kubiak’s mind

“I’m not bored, but it sure is frustrating. The hard thing right now is wanting to put this defense together. Everything up until the draft was normal. The minute the draft was over, everything changed. Normally, we take that next week and set our roster and get ready to go coach. I think today would have been our third day of OTAs. That’s what’s real frustrating.

“On the other hand, it has given us chances as a coaching staff to get a head start on people we’re playing, get all our preseason work done, get all those things done. Wade and those guys have spent a lot of time together. That’s been a plus. But it sure as hell doesn’t override the fact that we’re missing those guys. You really miss ’em. You miss their presence around the building.”

You love OTAs, don’t you?

“It’s my favorite time of the year. That’s when you catch up all your young players. You’re not concerned about a game plan. You’re not concerned about getting up to Sunday. You’re just concerned about how much they can absorb in that month. That time is the lifeblood of a second- and third-year player. The Dickersons and guys like that you’re trying to get to become pros. They’re missing out on it, so it’s tough.”

So how are you spending your days?

“Things we normally do right before we go to camp, like, preseason game plans, they’re done. We’re studying our division opponents. Our playbooks are done. We’re two months ahead on all that stuff, but a month behind on football.”

Did you know Wade Phillips before you interviewed him?

“I was a player in Denver when he first came there. My last two years, I think he was there as a coordinator. Obviously, I’ve known him for years through his dad. I coached against him so many places. When I was with the Broncos, he was in San Diego, so we went against each other all the time. Now I get a chance to work with him.”

What makes him good?

“Confidence. He’s not really complex in my opinion. What they do defensively is not real complex, but boy, they’re good at what they do. He usually takes away the best thing you do. He exudes confidence when he’s with a staff and with players. `This is all we have to do. This is all we’re going to do. And we’re going to be good at it.’ It doesn’t matter what you know. It’s what you can get your players to know. He’s got so much confidence in what he’s doing, and he’ll get the people in the right spots to do it.

“One of our biggest battles, you know, like the Mario conversation that’s been going on for three months. Just watching him come to the conclusion as we entered the draft, `Hey this is what he’s going to do for us. Now let’s go get this in the draft. He just said, `This is what I need for us to be good.”’

Does Mario love football?

“Yes. He’s a great kid, a wonderful person. He has a big heart. He’s a kid at heart in a lot of ways.”

Is he the key for your defense?

“If there’s a big key chain, he’s the biggest key on the chain. I can tell you that. What we’re asking him to do is assume a role of pass-rusher. For the first time, Mario’s going to line up, and nine out of 10 times, he’s got one job to do: get upfield and go get the quarterback.

“Some of the other things we’re doing defensively–playing with his hand down, playing over the tight end, playing open side, close side–that’s probably a lot more things.

“The thing that’s exciting for me is to listen to Reggie and Wade talk about him. See, Mario played some standing up, but they didn’t think he could play as good as he can play because of his footwork and some things they feel like they can help him with.

“Reggie has a relationship with Mario. He had him at North Carolina State. So just listening to them and where they think they can get him to is exciting. I’m looking forward to seeing it happen.”

What happened to Cushing last season?

“First off, anytime you miss a month in this business it’s hard. It’s like a player missing training camp. You look at OD. He doesn’t go through training camp and look what he went through all season. Training camp is a necessary evil to be a great player. Even though Cush went through camp and stuff, he couldn’t be here for a month. It’s hard to get back on track.

“It wasn’t his fault, but then we started doing a lot of stuff with him, trying to find an answer to find some consistency on defense. He became the moving part. I think we had to do what we did. I don’t know how fair it was to him. I think he had to try because we had some problems.”

Do you still think he will be a good player?

“I think he’ll be a great player. I think he’ll be gangbusters. He’s a great kid. He loves to play. Works hard. Wade has a vision for him. It was interesting hearing Wade’s vision for him. Cush played outside linebacker for us, but he played off the ball a great deal. Wade’s assumption of where he makes the most plays was interesting.”

How do you get Kareem Jackson back?

“I’ll tell you what, first off, obviously, it was a very difficult year for him. We put him in that situation. We threw him out there day one. We drafted him in the first round and said you’re going to start. We put him out there against Andre Johnson everyday in camp. It was a difficult year. People went after him.

“I’ll say this about the kid. He never missed a day. He never missed a practice. As hard as things were, he never walked away from the competition. I think players make their biggest jump from year one to two. I think because he stayed the course. I remember Mario as a rookie. He was sitting on the bench one game and someday came over to me and said, `Mario is so down. People are getting on him behind the bench.’

“He was the same way. Even though it was tough, he kept battling. From there, it has been nothing but uphill. I think Kareem will blossom because he stayed the course last year. He was able mentally to keep battling through what he was going through and what we were going through defensively.”

So you have to go get a veteran CB to play opposite Kareem?

“Well, that’s easy to say. Hopefully in free agency there’s an opportunity to add a veteran guy. We drafted those two young kids. We’re talking about moving Glover to safety, which is what we want to do. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that he was our best corner. Until Wade gets his hand on all of ’em, it’s hard to have that answer. We can sit here and talk about it, but it’s hard to know.”

What have you learned about Wade?

“I knew what type of person he is. I knew what type of coach he is. I guess I probably learned a lot in the draft room as far as what he looks for in a player. Obviously, I’ve been in a lot of draft rooms with various defensive coordinators. To see the way he went about it with his group of guys was very interesting. It was so cut and dried.

“Normally, you go into the draft, and you may evaluate 500 players and then narrow it down to 50-60 you’re hoping to pull your four or five out of. To watch him get the scope down to 15-20 guys when you’re talking the first three or four rounds was amazing. It was locked in before we went to draft day. He knew exactly what he wanted. He got five of ’em.”

What are you thinking about your offense?

“We’ve had a good offensive football team the last two years, but we can’t assume we’re okay. If you’re not reaching your goals, it’s not good enough. We still had a chance to offensively by scoring our 34 if we needed to. We can’t go backwards. We’re sitting here staring at the possibility of maybe losing Jacoby, maybe losing Vonta, maybe losing Butler. We don’t know what’s going to happen with free agency, but coming out of the draft we didn’t better ourselves on the offensive side of the ball. We’ve got to hold our group together, and we’ve got to get this group to continue to improve.”

I’m surprised you’re so high on Jacoby. I’ve had the feeling he frustrated you.

“When he was young, he frustrated me. To see how gifted he was and to know that if I could get him to buy into what it is to be a pro, what’s out there for him. We all kind of battled him for a couple of years. When you draft players, your job as a coach is to develope players. When you get somebody who has all that talent but you’re battling other things that are keeping him from being as good as he can be, you’ve got to figure out how to go and fix it. If it’s off the field, on the field, whatever. He has responded to the battle. We’ve had some rough talks here in this office, he and I. I left him at home when we went to Jacksonville one year. But to watch how far he’s come and to watch him. You look at him and Kevin last year, if you put those two guys together, I think they combined for 102-103 catches for over 1,100 yards. That would be the best No. 2 receiver in football. He’s come a long damn way.”

So you’ve invested all this time in him and…

“I don’t want him to go do it for somebody else. Last year was his best year as a pro. When Andre missed that time, he played his best.”

How did Matt play last season?

“I think Matt played very good. He can always play better, and he’d be the first one to tell you that. I think he was pretty darn consistent. It was a little different for him. He had the leading rusher in football. The year before, we threw it a lot more. He was the leading thrower in football. That’s a drastic change for an offensive football team to go from leading the league in throwing. Now you’ve got the leading rusher. We were different, but he could still line up and throw for 450 and win a game like he did in Washington.

“I think he belongs in the elite quarterbacks in this league. I think he probably has to take another step to be mentioned with a few of those guys.”

Matt’s turnovers?

“They went down. The number was down. His turnovers were the least he has had. Still, a great quarterback does his job and protects the ball at the same time. That’s the key. You look at Brady last year. When you’re three-to-one in touchdowns-to-interceptions, you’ve found a new level.”

You trust Matt?

“I trust him. I think he’s a helluva player. He’s a leader. He’s as hard a worker in the classroom as I’ve ever been around. He works at the game, studies football, works himself personally. He’s the first one in the building and the last one to leave. He has been that way since the day he walked in the door. He has a great personality, gets along with everybody.”

You’re hard on QBs on game day.

“I’d say I’m harder on them than anybody else. He’s tough. He gets after me, too. He didn’t early, but he does now. He battles me. That’s what you want. We’ll look at the pictures and I’ll ask, `What were you seeing here?’ Or we may have a conversation, like, `Hey, that’s not what we said we were going to do. What the hell are you doing here?’

“He may have a good answer for me. Damnit, it’s third-and-six, and I’m trying to make a play. He battles me. That’s what you want. You want to call a play and a guy says, `No, I don’t like that one.’ You want to call him over during a timeout and say, `I like these two plays. What do you think?’ He’s a tough-minded guy and has gotten tougher and tougher as time has gone on.”

How does he react to bad times?

“I know what that’s like. When you play that position, you get a lot of credit when you win. You get a lot of blame when you lose. When something that bad happens, nobody is harder on him than himself. I promise our team our quarterback will play good. Ever since I’ve been in coaching, I’ve walked in the offensive room and said, `I promise you one thing. Our quarterback will play good.’ So do your job.

“I’m hard on him, and I want his teammates to know I’m hard on him. He’ll get called out as much as anybody. I want them to know our quarterback will do his job.”

When you played golf with him what did you learn?

“He hadn’t really played enough for me to say hey I watched a week of film and there was no doubt. He had started two or three games. He had done a lot of good things. For me, it was easy. I knew coaches who coached him. Alex Gibbs had been there. Billy Musgrave had been there. I got their opinion. I think he has starter ability. I think he can lead a team to the playoffs.

“I’d studied him out of college, so I already thought he was a pretty darn good player. When I went to meet him, he was just so competitive, jabbing me on the golf course and I’d just met him. He was very confident. You knew that was the kind of guy you wanted to be around. Every good one I’ve ever been around acts like that.

“I don’t know what `it’ is, but there’s something about those guys. People gravitate to them. They’re very tough-minded. They have a toughness about them I don’t think the public knows. You watch Brady and Peyton compete. Boy they get pissed. Practice field. Meeting room. Golf. They’re just competitive guys. Matt is like that.”

How hard was last season for you?

“It was very difficult. It was so disappointing. I think we had a dang good football team when the season started. We had two big problems to start the season. Knowing we’re going to miss Cushing for a month and knowing we’re going to lose Duane for a month. We overcame both those issues. We did a really good job getting through those two issues.

“I remember telling Cushing, `When you come back in week five, we’re going to be in good shape. You better be ready to go.’ I remember us leaving Oakland 3-1. Knowing he was going to walk in the locker room the next day was a good feeling.

“We got to 4-2. The day we got to 4-2, there was a good feeling around here. We had a bye coming. But I had big concerns because of who we had lost that day. When DeMeco went down. In the four games we won, I think we scored 34, 35, 30 and 31. I knew that wasn’t good. It’s hard to win that way in this league consistently. I had concerns.

“We had two healthy linebackers, and I had to make a decision on what we were going to do. The last 10 weeks, hell, we failed. You go 2-8 in this business regardless of the problems you have, it doesn’t matter. We failed.

“I was really disappointed in Tennessee. I didn’t like the way we played that day. That day when I got on the bus, I didn’t feel good. That was late in the bad stretch. The stretch was so difficult because we were losing all those close games. You get beat on a Hail Mary. What did we lose–four games on the last play–Jacksonville, the Jets, Baltimore and San Diego? Literally on the last play of the game. But my lowest point was when we left Tennessee. My wife’s never been on a road trip with me, and I don’t know why she decided to go on this one. When I got back on the bus after the game, that was disappointed as I ever was. I sat down by here and didn’t know what to say. We did not play well. We did not play hard.

“I felt like our effort was very good throughout that bad stretch. I thought we still played hard. I thought we had our chances. Obviously, we had some agonizing defeats. But I didn’t like the effort that day in Tennessee. That was the most concerned I was. I don’t know what to tell you.

“We came back and met the next day as a team and watched the film together as a team. I told ’em exactly what I’m telling you. I said I know we’ve been through hell and we’ve lost some tough games. It’s not good right now. But we’re not going to put up with this.

“We just sat there and watched it, and it was exactly what I thought it was. It wasn’t what we had been getting from everybody through the course of the season.

“It was about all of us. I don’t think it was about one or two guys. It was across the board. That was a poor, poor effort on our organization’s part.”

What did you tell ’em after the game?

“I think I calmly told them, `I think this is what I saw on the field. We’re going to go back tomorrow and find out.”’

You meet with Bob McNair weekly?

“Every Monday, I meet with Bob and Cal and Rick after the news conference. I meet with him for about an hour and a half. I told him exactly what I’m telling you. Bob watches the film. By the time I come in here, he has been through it.

“We played poorly. We didn’t play hard. That’s a hard thing to sit there and tell somebody.”

Did you ever think you were going to be fired?

“I never thought about it to be honest with you. I was asked that many times. I had a pretty good idea you’d ask me that today. I don’t think of things that way.

“I wake up everyday and try to do the best damn job I can. I know this game is hard, and I know this business is hard. I’ve been to the top of it, and I’ve had my butt knocked down, too.

“We had some tough meetings. Normally when I’m in there, I meet with Bob and Rick and Cal. For the first time, I had meetings just with him.

“The one thing I know about Bob is he’s very involved with what we do. It’s not like I visit with Bob once a month and catch him up on what’s happened. Bob’s at practice. He meets with me every Monday. He talks to me throughout the week. What are we doing to do? What do you feel like we have to do to win this game?”

Why do you think he believed in you?

“I hope it’s for the same reason he hired me. I hope it’s because he believes I’m the best guy to do this job. My only answer is that he watchs everyday what I do with the players. He doesn’t stop by now and then.”

You never react to criticism.

“That’s a great question. To say I never react… I think that’s the way I was built and raised as a man. To accept responsibility with what I’m doing. I know the job I do I’m going to get my ass ripped. I know you have a job to do. It fuels me to be honest with you. I was on the treadmill today. What’s the song? I get off on the pain.

“There’s pain in this business. There’s pain in life, too. You go through it and you don’t battle it. It fuels you. I know what it’s like to put that ring on. I’ve been able to put it on three times. My kids all have a ring. I want one for me. I want it come from here. I’m going to stay in this business because I want to win another Super Bowl. I know what that feels like.

“I also know you have to go through a lot of tough times and a lot of work, highs and lows to get it done. I don’t know. From a personal standpoint, that’s just the way I am.

“I raised my kids to handle themselves a certain way and how to go about doing things. I don’t want them to see their old man doing something he tells them not to. I don’t want them to turn the TV and see me lose it. Hopefully, that won’t happen. I’ve known you guys for years. I understand your job. I understand my responsibility.

“I also understand what it would feel like someday for all of us to sit there and celebrate what I picture in my mind someday, what it would mean to everybody. That’s what keeps me going.

“I’ve never been cut or fired as a player or coach. That’s kind of unheard of in this business. Hopefully, I can keep that string alive.”

Optimism for 2011?

“It’s very high. I think we’ve got a damn good football team. I think we lost our way on the defensive side of the ball last year, and I think we have the perfect guy to fix it. I think we can build a team that can win three ways, not one way. I’m excited to see that happen.”

Did you have too much youth on defense last season?

“Was it too young? The back end was very young. This is a young man’s game. When you look at the core of some very good teams, there are a bunch of real young players contributing. If you’re going to lose players in year four in free agency, you better get guys playing at their optimal level in years two, three and four.

“You want eight or nine veterans that have been in playoff games and been successful, but the core of your football team is probably going to be pretty young.”

Wade is your first defensive coordinator that has done it before. Mistake?

“I don’t think it was a mistake. I think we were trying to build a young football team and get it all going in the same direction together. I think that can include a coordinator. I can’t tell you how many young guys have done well with their first opportunity. Mike gave me mine. I was scared to death. Kyle was a first-time coordinator. Troy Calhoun was a first-time coordinator. I feel good giving those guys an opportunity. I think Richard and Frank are both damn good coaches.”